When I began my journey as a Student Affairs Webmaster (for hating the term, I sure do use it alot – pinky to side of mouth “Mewhaaahaaaa”) in higher education over five years ago, the sites that I took over were basically regurgitations of offline materials.
I attempted to get departments to think in new ways about the Web, but it was an uphill battle. They could only see the Web as a virtual rack of brochures, destined to collect dust.
Now, thanks to online video, wikis, blogs, and social networks, and largely thanks to students’ acceptance of all things new, the departments/offices I work with are realizing that the Web has real potential. Yes, they are finally getting it, sort of…
This newfound love for the Web has unearthed a new problem – lack of time to devote to the Web.
My side of the equation is easily covered – you want a blog, and I’ll have it up by the end of the day. But the human side (the content and caring side) is now the missing piece.
The old “brochure on the Web model” was extremely hands off:
- Approve a design that looks pretty
- Get the Web guy the copy and some links.
- Then step away and revisit in three years; sooner if a new director comes on board who favors a livelier color palette and larger logo.
The new model is a little more involved:
- Wet
- Wash
- Rinse
- Repeat and repeat and repeat
They now need to monitor the conversation, enter the conversation, add value to the conversation, and nurture the conversation. And on occasion they’ll need to defuse bombs and extinguish fires. Sure they do all of this already, but not online.
This all requires time – time that departments aren’t yet ready to hand over to the Web. We’re all understaffed and overworked, so the back burner is a great place for the Web stuff to simmer unattended. Front burners are for cooking, and without someone constantly stirring the pot, things are going to burn, alarms are going to sound, and windows are going to be opened to air out the stink.
So while we can now do great things (quickly and cheaply thanks to Web 2.0) and have departments/offices wanting to do them, truth is, until job descriptions are revised to include online responsibilities we’ll never be able to fully embrace the power of the new Web.
^^^^^^^^^^
When job descriptions include online responsibilities, we also need to make sure that they are given the proper training, time, etc. to do it right. More often then I would like I get calls / emails asking me to show someone how to do something because they now have the responsibility of taking care of the web site. I can’t teach you my job in 60 minutes, so stop asking me to.
@Paula – BINGO! I think the worst thing that could happen is someone being given the task of “Web 2.0 person for the department/office” and seeing it as a bothersome job/chore. And/or that person not understanding what is going on. So, yeah, they’d definitely need to be spooled up and ready to go, and would need to cherish the new responsibility. I think blogs are pretty basic and even lab rats can figure them out given time and cheese; however, I’ve had people make them go boom shortly after handing over the keys.
This is so true. People don’t understand what they want a lot of the time and it becomes my job to listen to what they want to do then guide them to the best way to accomplish this. More and more of the time I’m directing people to create a blog, but as you mentioned a blog is worthless unless someone is willing to develop the content, monitor the blog, and do a little promoting. But then that isn’t my job so sometimes it just kind of dies away and people just don’t understand why.
Hum…